Just another one of the hundreds of manpower agency in SG. Anyway the industry turnover so high most ppl dun even stay for 1 year, go in there money no good or lousy environment just jump to another setup.

Help needed from a junior
 

Dear all,

I'am 21 this year, a graduate from poly with an events background. I wish to embark into the learning and development sector in future, but wouldn't mind starting from a HR assistant due to the lack of experience.

I have also applied for Bachelor in Business under uniSIM ( part time ), and a full time HR job at a healthcare industry. Pending replies for both.

1) Is it necessary to get a degree for better career prospects in HR?
2) Is it appropriate to start as a HR assistant? What are ways to progress better?
3) Is L&D worth progressing to in a healthcare industry?

Really hope to seek advices from all of you, thank u!!

Are you interested in L&D curriculum design and strategy or L&D training & admin? These 2 very different, one is specialist one is generalist.

Re: help needed from a junior
 

my take would most prob be training and admin. Not very sure what Design&Strategy is about too.

Well if it is a generalist ops training role then is very straight forward. Just buy one of those pte uni degrees (at least make sure accredited by MOE), doesn't matter actual discipline as long as it has something to do with business / commerce / management.

Meanwhile can grab some generic HR jobs like HR Assistant / Officer, doesn't need to be training because most of these jobs is general support for all transactions, so you will get some training admin exposure one way of the other.

Once you finish getting the degree, can go apply for a generic HR / Training Exec job and just go from there can already.

help from junior
 

I see. Thanks for this input man! Was just wondering if getting a degree truly helps or I could actually save the cost and start small as a HR assistant > hence the dilemma

Degree is to help you get the exec title, no need too fancy, buy one from MDIS, Kaplan, SHRI etc is good enough for show. If you have a bit of spare cash can consider buying from SIM also which is slightly more expensive.

But u better reconsider what u want to do long term, training admin is honestly a dead end job.

thanks for the advices! Really? oh all along I thought training makes quite a good prospect! what do u all think is the best dept in HR acrding to your experiences?

I wouldn’t say training ops is total dead end, just that got very limited career prospects. The typical guy who does training ops all his life is usually a friendly uncle/auntie who is popular but got no decision making power at all. The old ones get a sexy title like Manager / Director, but they are essentially doing an associate job. The title is to recognize their experience and long years of service.

The pros is that it is usually a relatively relax job within HR since there is no management responsibility or hard KPIs to meet. Talking to staff part is also much easier since most people treat training as either SOP go through motion thing or an opportunity to take a break from work.

Cons is low pay progression - many of these guys in the industry are near retirement and cannot even hit 10k monthly. A small percent of top performers in training will eventually move into BP or L&D or OE specialization areas in their early 30s in order to progress.

I see! What is the diff between L&D and training admin? All along I thought both are somewhat the same. Do you know which department deals with planning events for the company? Like D&D etc etc?